18-2G.J [ 575 ] 



VILLAGE SKETCHES.— NO. III. 



The Seventh Son (>f a Sevenlh Son. 



Superstition has fallen so deplorably into decay in our enliglitencd 

 country, tliut the mysterious and significant title which heads this 

 article, would hardly, now-a-days, conniiand respect in a quack doctor's 

 bills. I doubt, indeed, whetlier any (juack-doctor would think it worth 

 while to assume such a distinction. Sunday-schools and s[)inning- 

 jennies — steam-engines and MacAdam roads — to say nothing of that 

 mightiest and most diffusive of" all powers, the Press — have chased away 

 the spirit of credulity, as gliosts are said to be scared by the dawn ; 

 so that if a second Sir Thomas Browne were to appear amongst us, we 

 should be forced to send him to Germany to seek that class of vulgar 

 errors, the old saws and nursery legends, which once formed a sort of 

 supplement to the national faith, an apocrypha as ancient and as general 

 as our language. Not only have we discarded the more gross and 

 gloomy creations of an ignorant fear — the wizards, witches, and demons 

 of the middle ages — but we have also divested ourselves of the more 

 genial and every-day phantasies, the venerable and conventional errors 

 — pleasant mistakes at least, if mistakes they v.-ere — which succeeded to 

 them. Who now hails his good fortune if he meet two magpies, or 

 bewails his evil destiny if he see but one ? who is in or out of spirits 

 according as the concave cinder which does him the honour to jump 

 from the fire on his foot, be oblong or circular — a coffin or a purse ? Who 

 looks in the candles for expected letters, or searches the tea-cups for 

 coming visitors ? Who shrinks from being helped to salt, as if one 

 were offering him arsenic, or is wretched if a knife and fork be laid 

 across his plate ? Who, if his neighbour chance to sneeze, thinks it a 

 bounden duty to cry " God bless him ?" Who tells his dreams o'niornings, 

 and observes that they come true by contraries ? Who, except perhaps 

 the Great Unknown — 



" Prevailing poet, whose unJoubting mind 

 Believes the magic wonders that he .sings;" 

 who, except Sir Walter, has faith in the stars? — Nobody. 



And yet sometimes, although very rarely, one does meet with some 

 tattered remnant of the old picturesque faith amongst our country- 

 people, and hails it accordingly. An adventure that befel me last INIa}' 

 is one of the most notable instances that has come under my observa- 

 tion. I shall relate it literally as it occurred. 



I was on a visit at a considerable distance from home, in one of the 

 most retired parts of B***shire. Nothing could be more beautiful than 

 the situation, or less accessible; shut in amongst woody hills, remote 

 from great towns, with deep chalky roads, almost impassable, and a 

 broad bridgeless river, '• coming cranking in" to intercept your steps 

 whenever j-ou did seem to have fallen into a beaten track. It was 

 exactly the country and the season in which to wander about all day 

 long. 



One fair morning I sat out on my accustomed ramble. The sun was 

 intensely hot ; the sky almost cloudless ; I had climbed a long abrupt 

 ascent, to enjoy the sight of the magnificent river, winding like a snake 

 amidst the richly clothed hills ; the pretty village with its tapering spire, 

 and the universal freshness and brilliancy of the gay and smiling 

 prospect — too gay perhaps ! I gazed till I became dazzled with the 



